Austin Bordeaux Professor Chan December 1, 2012 History of Contemporary Issues Section 02 Darfur Integrative Essay

The killing of human kind destroys the connection we have between each other. Genocides ruin cultures for centuries, causing them to decline and lose everything. It is unfortunate how this works but it is all started with an idea and turned into a huge conflict. The idea set in by the Europeans and Egyptian rule was that any Arabian was superior to the rest; basically all of these people follow the religion of Arianism. So there for giving the upper hand to any other Arabian leading them to believe that they were of a higher class and superior to all other races around them and giving them the right to do as they wish; destroying Darfur as an aftermath. Sudan has been raised up and inhabited by the Egyptians and British. They continued to select the groups they adored and made the racial division much greater then it shouldve been, putting social groups on top and many in the dirt. The Sudan region is very divided, in the North it is very Muslim dominated and in the South very Christian. These large two large groups were given little power, but were distributed to many groups down the Nile River obvious reasons. They were smarter people and ran the trading post up and down the Nile, which in their eyes should give them more power. Also the fact that the Egyptians were mostly Arabians

caused them to give even more social and exclusive power over any other race. Eventually the Egyptians and British retreated out of Sudan leaving them with a disorganized government, but luckily a concrete military, gaining there Independence in 1956 (Lecture). In a result of a strong military many different leaders took advantage of this in Sudan and lead many coups. Starting with the 1958 coup lead by General Ibrahim Abboud and ending with the bombings in the Darfur Genocides (Lecture). Sudan at this point was already in a dispute from the raging civil war that was taking place between the Muslims and the Christians. Already creating enough rigidity in the country, every citizen was forced to conform to Islamic Law. As time passed some of the Islamic radicals would raid the borders of Sudan killing many people in countless villages. At the Jaafar alNimeiry was the president of Sudan and didnt see too much harm from these radicals considering they shared his same beliefs, but eventually kicked them out of the country. This gave many doubts to the citizens of Sudan when your president found this acceptable. Things only become worse with different Presidents coming into power and more coups happening. In 1969 Colonel Mummar Gadaffi was in power in Libya, looking forward to the idea of Arabization. In 1972 Gadaffi established the Islamic Legion to help destabilize Nimeiry and create an Arab Union in Darfur. In 1975 Gaddaffi tried to overthrow Nimeiry, condemning him of betraying the Revolutionary Arab Cause. This initiated a spark in the Darfur people radicalizing them even more seeing as the the Islamists were slowly creeping upon them and taking over. The next President of Sudan was a man named Sadiq al-Mahdi in 1986, he created

a militia and underlined Islamic purity, which increased Islamic and radicals, all throughout Sudan. With all of these events happing dealing with racial and religion conflicts, Sudan was in a pretty big predicament. They were lacking prestige conditions to farm, with that there was also a huge drought through the land 1985. Gadaffi was all for helping though who identified themselves as Arabs otherwise they were thrown to the dogs. Darfur was slowing suffering because many did not say they were Arabs and created much tension especially when the country does not come to every citizens side when in distress. Everything that has occurred of the past 60 years can be blamed on the Egyptians and British for implementing the social classes. They put the Arabs on top and which started much conflict. Having many Presidents in power going against a huge population of people of a different religion in its own country is bound to end terribly. To this day Sudan still identifies themselves as Africans, which is very contradictory of what has been going on within the country. The Arab race is now seen as more of a social class in the country then an Ethnic group. Being a higher status than all other races in their eyes, lead to many deaths and the Darfur Genocide.